Operating budgets prove that Michigan State is investing heavily into hockey

Michigan State hockey has been a staple atop the NCAA hockey rankings for a few years now and that’s due, in large part, to the coaching of one Adam Nightingale.

The two-time Big Ten Coach of the Year is entering his fifth season with the Spartans and he’s won three straight conference titles. He’s also led the Spartans to 25-plus wins in three straight seasons which hasn’t happened since Rick Comley did it with Michigan State from 2005-08. Unfortunately, the season following that stretch was a forgettable 10-23-5.

The Spartans’ head coach is also landing and developing elite talent. He’s actually projected to have the No. 2 pick in the upcoming NHL Draft in Chase Reid and he just watched as Porter Martone left after his freshman season and helped lead the Philadelphia Flyers to the NHL Playoffs while being a point-scoring machine in the process.

Nightingale is doing things that we haven’t see the Michigan State hockey program do in decades and all that’s missing now is a Frozen Four and national title. That’s next.

With a program trending up in a way that Michigan State has been under Nightingale, it only makes sense to invest heavily into it.

Matt Brown of Extra Points FOIA’d the operating budget for all the public schools in men’s ice hockey and what he found was interesting and it proves that Michigan State is playing in the big leagues. The Spartans actually had the most expensive hockey program this year and for the past two seasons. They spent $9.1 million on its operating budget this year, down about $270,000 from last year.

The next-closest program was Arizona State (still weird to think they have a serious hockey program) at $8.6 million and Penn State at $7.9 million.

Michigan State isn’t messing around. The Spartans are investing a ton of money into the program and the Munn renovations probably contributed a large portion of these operating costs. Elite hockey programs spend money on their teams and it’s nice to see that Michigan State is finally becoming one.

A Frozen Four next year would shut a lot of doubters up.

The Frozen Four keeps Adam Nightingale up at night

As long as Nightingale keeps winning Big Ten titles and beating Michigan, he’s going to stick around in East Lansing, but at some point he needs to win a national title or — at the very least — make a Frozen Four.

The Spartans were college hockey’s favorite to win the national title this past season after holding the No. 1 spot for a decent portion of the year and finishing with a 25-8-2 record. Unfortunately, Wisconsin had other plans. Despite being up by two late in the third period, the Badgers erased that deficit with two goals in 34 seconds to force overtime. There, they won in the opening minutes.

That loss definitely kept Nightingale up at night because he was minutes away from the program’s first Frozen Four in almost two decades. He was that close.

Fortunately, he has more than enough talent to secure yet another 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament and have every advantage in its path to a Frozen Four in 2027.

How about Michigan State hockey and basketball both make the Final (Frozen) Four next spring? That sounds pretty good to me.

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